This blog features my weekly column called "What's up in the sky". It is published every Saturday in the Ellensburg newspaper, Daily Record (http://www.kvnews.com/). While my postings will be most accurate for Central Washington, readers throughout the northern USA may find something of use.

Thursday, January 29, 2015

Saturday: This
is the weekend to spend time with the 12s. At 11 pm, look four fists held
upright and at arm’s length above the southeast horizon to Leo, the 12th
largest constellation. Just to the right of the backwards question mark that
represents Leo’s head is Jupiter. Jupiter is the largest planet but Callisto,
the 12th largest object in our Solar System, orbits it. Callisto, along with
Jupiter’s three other large moons, is visible with a small telescope. At 11:00
tonight, Callisto is to the upper right of Jupiter, about one Jupiter-diameter
away. The 12th largest star is PZ Cassiopeiae, a red supergiant with
a radius about 1,500 times that of the Suns, is always visible with binoculars.
It is circumpolar which means it never sets. It is about three fists above the
northwest horizon at 11 p.m. constellation Cassiopeia. You’ll have to wait
until morning to see the 12th brightest star. Altair is two fists above the
east horizon at 6:30 a.m.

Sunday:
Are you going to watch the super bowl tonight? Is the bowl really that super?
After all, half the night the bowl is tipped upside down, spilling out all of
its contents. But don’t just focus on the functionality of the bowl. Think
about how it inspires people all across the world to sit on the green grass and
look into the dark blue early evening sky. In Mongolia, participants in the
super bowl are known as gods. An Arabian story says the super bowl is a coffin,
one that can even hold dying patriots. I encourage you go outside tonight at
about 8 p.m., after whatever unimportant thing you have been doing since 3:30
p.m. Look low in the north-northwest sky and watch the super bowl, also known
as the Big Dipper, balancing on the end of its handle, proudly displaying its
large bowl.

Monday: Tomorrow
is Groundhog Day. If Punxsutawney Phil doesn’t see his shadow this morning, he
is telling us that he follows the Chinese calendar and that spring starts
early. On the Chinese calendar, equinoxes and solstices occur in the middle of
their respective seasons. In order for the vernal equinox to occur in the
middle of spring, spring must start on February 3 or 4, depending on the year. Thus,
if Phil doesn’t see his shadow, legend is that spring will start on February 3
or 4 as on the Chinese calendar. If Phil sees his shadow, he is telling us he
agrees with the western calendar and that there will be six more weeks of
winter meaning spring will start near March 20.

Tuesday: The
very bright planet Venus is one fist above the west-southwest horizon at 6 p.m.
Mars is about 100 times less bright and located one fist to the upper left of
Venus.

Wednesday:
Winter is the best season for finding bright stars. And if you only want to set
aside a few minutes, 10 p.m. tonight just might be the best time because the
winter hexagon is due south. Starting at the bottom, find Sirius, the brightest
star in the night sky, two and a half fists above the south horizon. Going
clockwise, Procyon (6th brightest star visible from Washington
state) is about two and a half fists to the upper left of Sirius. Pollux (12th
brightest) is about two and a half fists above Procyon. Capella (4th
brightest) is about two and a half fists to the upper right of Procyon and
close to straight overhead. Going back to Sirius at the bottom, Rigel (5th
brightest) about two and a half fists to the upper right of Sirius. Aldebaran
(9th brightest) is about three fists above Rigel. Betelgeuse (7th
brightest) is in the center of the hexagon. Adhara (16th brightest)
is a little more than a fist below Sirius and Castor (17th
brightest) is right above Pollux. That’s nine of the 17 brightest stars visible
in the northern United States in one part of the sky.

Thursday: Saturn
is a little more than two fists above the south horizon at 6:30 a.m.

Friday:
The good news is the days are getting longer and the nights are getting
shorter. The better news is the farther north you go in the United States, the
longer the days get. Here in Ellensburg, there is one and a half more hours of
daylight than on the first day of winter. In the southern part of the US, there
is only 35 more minutes of sunlight. On the North Pole, the day length has gone
from zero hours to zero hours in the past month and a half. If you’d like to
have your own fun with day lengths and other time questions, go to http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/sunrise.html.

The
positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically
accurate for the entire week. For up to date information about the night sky,
go to http://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/planner.cfm.

Thursday, January 22, 2015

Saturday: One Family Affair explored the trials of
well-to-do civil engineer and bachelor Bill Davis as he attempted to raise his
brother's orphaned children in his luxury New York City apartment (as described
on Wikipedia). Another family affair explores how a well-to-do Solar System raises
its constituents from birth, through growth, change, and death. Just like Buffy
and Jody started off full of energy, planets start out hot and molten. Cissy
got wrinkles as she approached middle age; planets become cratered as they age.
We watched the TV show “Family Affair” to learn about a nontraditional
Manhattan family grew and changed. Astronomers study other planets to learn how
the Solar System will change. For more information about this Solar System
Family Affair, go to http://goo.gl/G029D. Jupiter, the dad of the Solar System family, is about two
fists held upright and at arm’s length above the eastern horizon at 8 p.m.

Sunday: There are three planets low in the western sky at
6 p.m. The brightest is Venus, a half a fist above the west-southwest horizon.
About one and a half fists to the upper left of Venus is Mars. Neptune is on a
line between the two, about a half a fist below Mars. You’ll definitely need a
pair of binoculars to see it. For most binoculars, when Mars is in the upper
left hand portion of your field of view, Neptune is in the lower right.

Monday: A half mile wide asteroid will come “speeding” by
the Earth tonight. The word speeding is in quotes because the asteroid will be
moving through the sky at two degrees (four full moon diameters) per hour. This
is much faster than any other celestial object, but still slow enough to easy
to find with binoculars or a small telescope. The best way to positively
identify the asteroid, called 2004BL86, is to view the same part of the sky
multiple times. The object that moves over an hour will be the asteroid. At 7
p.m., look about one fist to the upper right of Jupiter, which is the bright
object one fist above the east horizon. 2004BL86 will be near the brightest
star in the constellation. As the hours go by, the asteroid will move toward
the middle of the constellation. At 11 p.m., it will be just below the open
star cluster called the Beehive Cluster. At midnight, it will be just above the
Beehive Cluster. For more information on the asteroid, including a map to help
you find it, go to http://goo.gl/jo3It2.

Tuesday: Draco Malfoy makes an appearance in all seven
books of the Harry Potter series. Perhaps you’ve heard of these. But, the
constellation Draco the dragon makes an appearance in the sky every night. It
is a circumpolar constellation as viewed from Ellensburg meaning it never goes
below the horizon. The head of the dragon is one fist above due north at 9:30
p.m. Eltanin, the brightest star in the constellation, is at the lower
left-hand corner of the trapezoid-shaped head of Draco.

Wednesday: Have you ever mooned a bull? It
sounds like something a rodeo clown might do. You can see it done tonight… sort
of. The moon is less than a half a fist to the right of the constellation
Taurus the Bull, six fists above due south at 7:30 p.m.

Thursday: Let’s review three important sets of three
cats. There’s Josie, Valerie, and Melody of Josie and the Pussycats. Felix,
Tom, and Sylvester from old time cartoons. And, if you want to get away from
the mind-numbing effects of television, there’s Leo the lion, Leo Minor, and
Lynx in the night sky. Leo is by far the most prominent of these three
constellations. Its brightest star called Regulus is nearly four fists above
the east-southeast horizon at 11 p.m. The backwards question mark-shaped head
of Leo is above Regulus and the trapezoid-shaped body is to the left of it. Leo
Minor consists of a few dim stars right above Leo. Pretty wimpy. The long dim
constellation spans from just above Leo Minor to nearly straight overhead. You
and fellow stargazers won’t need to wear a long tail or ears for hats to enjoy
these stellar cats.

Friday: Are you interested in participating in astronomy
research? You don’t need to go back to school. You don’t need to spend
thousands of dollars getting a fake degree from an online university. The
scientists working on the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or
HiRISE, camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter would like your input on
which objects they should target for close-up pictures. While you may think the
scientists are just trying to build interest in their project by having people
look at pretty pictures, there is a real scientific benefit to having many eyes
searching for interesting targets. There aren’t enough scientists to carefully
inspect all of the low power images. And surprisingly, computers are not nearly
as effective as people in making nuanced judgments of images. So, go to
http://www.uahirise.org/ and click on the HiWish button. You’ll be on your way
to suggesting close-up targets for NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The positional information in this column about stars and
planets is typically accurate for the entire week. For up to date information
about the night sky, go to http://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/planner.cfm.

Thursday, January 15, 2015

Saturday: Who can forget that memorable song by Three Dog
Constellations Night, “The sky is black. The stars are white. Together we learn
to find the light.” Well, maybe it didn’t go like that. Which is good. Because
not all stars are white. Most stars are too dim to notice a color. But, two of the
stars in the constellation Orion provide a noticeable contrast with each other.
Betelgeuse, five fists held upright and at arm’s length above the south horizon
at 10:30 p.m. is a red giant. Rigel, the bright star about two fists to the
lower right of Betelgeuse, is a blue giant.

By the way, the three dog constellations are Canis Major,
the greater dog, found one and a half fists to the lower left of Orion; Canis
Minor, the lesser dog, found two and a half fists to the left of Betelgeuse;
and Canes Venatici, the hunting dogs, found low in the northeast sky. Canis
Major contains Sirius, the brightest star in the nighttime sky.

Sunday: The brightest planet Venus is a half a fist above
the southwest horizon at 5:30 p.m. Mercury is a half a fist to the lower right
of Venus.

Monday: Neptune is the dimmest planet in the Solar System
but tonight you can use Mars and a pair of binoculars to help you find it.
First, use your naked eyes to spot Mars two fists above the southwest horizon.
Neptune will be too dim to see. But, when Mars is centered in your binocular
field of view, Neptune will be just to the upper right of it. Even if you have
a small telescope, you can easily see them both in the same field of view. They
are about as far apart from each other in the sky as the quarter phase moon is
thick.

Tuesday: Listen, do you want to know a secret? Do you promise not to tell? Whoa
oh, oh. The Beatles certainly didn’t
write this song about the Barringer meteorite crater in Arizona. Astronomers
are studying this 50,000-year-old impact to learn more about our planet’s
violent history as well as the physics of impacts throughout the solar system.
If you’d like to be let in on some of these secrets, go to http://goo.gl/sqbBe.

Wednesday: Are you looking for a vacation
spot close by? One that is not to hot and not too cold? Or one that is “just
right”? Two years ago, astronomers discovered that the star Tau Ceti, one of
our closest neighbor at 12 light years away, may have five planets. One of
those planets orbiting the Sun-like star is in the so-called Goldilocks Zone
where the temperature is just right for having liquid water. You’ll want to do
some research before you travel there. Tau Ceti is two and a half fists above
the south-southwest horizon at 7 p.m. For more information about the discovery,
go to http://goo.gl/xcv0dl.

Thursday: You never see a giraffe on the ground in
Ellensburg. But you can look for one every night in the sky. The constellation
Camelopardalis the giraffe is circumpolar from Ellensburg’s latitude of 47
degrees north meaning it is always above the horizon. Don’t expect to be
overwhelmed by the appearance of the stars in Camelopardalis. The brightest
star in the constellation appears only about half as bright as the dimmest star
in the Big Dipper. However, the actual luminosities of the three brightest
stars in Camelopardalis are very high, each at least 3,000 times more luminous
than the Sun. Alpha Camelopardalis, a mind boggling 600,000 times more luminous
than the Sun, is seven fists above the northern horizon at 9 p.m.

Friday: Jupiter is two fists above the east horizon at 8
p.m.

The positional information in this column about stars and
planets is typically accurate for the entire week. For up to date information
about the night sky, go to http://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/planner.cfm.

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Saturday: Do
you have a dime? No, I’m not going to ask you to use a payphone. (“A what?”
asked the young person.) Do you have a penny? No, I’m going to ask you to buy a
gumball. (“Gum for a penny?” asked the young person.) But I will ask you to
make a measurement at 5:15 p.m. Mercury and Venus are very close together a
half a fist above the southwest horizon with Mercury being to the lower right of
much brighter Venus. Hold a dime out at arm’s length. It should easily fit
between them. Then hold a penny at arm’s length. Depending on the length of
your arm, this may be a snug fit.

Sunday:
How do you study the life cycle of a dog? Easy. Get a dog from the animal
shelter, care for it for 15 years and study it. How do you study the life cycle
of a star? Easy. Pick a star, watch it for a few billion years, and…. Wait a
minute. Astronomers can’t observe something for a few billion years. Instead,
they study stars that are at different points in their long life cycle and
piece together the information from those different stars. What they do is like
studying a one-year-old dog for a few minutes, then studying a different
two-year-old dog for a few minutes, and so on. The sky in and near the
constellation Orion provides an example of four objects at different points of
star life.

First,
find Rigel, the bright star in the lower right corner of the constellation
Orion. This star, rapidly burning its fuel for a high energy but short-lived
existence, is three and a half fists above the south horizon at 10 p.m. About
one fist up and to the left are the three objects of Orion’s sword holder. The
middle “star” is really a star-forming region called the Orion nebula. There
you’ll find baby Suns. Now, look about two fists to the right and a little
below Rigel. You should be looking at a star that is about one tenth as bright
as Rigel but still the brightest in its local region. The third star to the
right of that star is Epsilon Eridani, the most Sun-like close and bright star.
Betelgeuse, in the upper left corner of Orion, is a star at the end of its life
that started out life a bit larger than the Sun.

Monday: The
snout of Taurus the Bull points to Comet Lovejoy for the next three nights. First,
find the V-shaped grouping of stars, six fists above due south at 8 p.m. This
is the Hyades cluster, representing the snout of Taurus. Comet Lovejoy is one
fist to the lower right of the snout. The “V” will point right to it. On a
clear night away from the city lights, you should be able to see the comet
without optical aids. But in town, and to see detail, you’ll need binoculars.
For more information about the comet and where to find it, go to http://goo.gl/imiDsi.

Tuesday:
Orion stands tall in the southern sky. At 10:30 p.m., the middle of Orion’s
belt is four fists above due south. And talk about belt tightening! Alnilam,
the middle star in the belt, is losing mass at a rate of about 100 thousand
trillion tons a day. That’s a 1 followed by 17 zeros tons per day.

Wednesday:
Hit the road Mercury. And don’t you come back no more, no more. For a few
weeks, Mercury has been hitting the road and moving away from the Sun in the
sky. Today, Mercury is as far away from the Sun as it will get on the evening
half of this cycle. This is known as its greatest eastern elongation. Yet, this
distance does not translate into good viewing because Mercury will be very low
in the sky. Mercury is a half a fist above the southwest horizon at 5:30 p.m.
Over the next few weeks, Mercury will move toward the Sun in the sky. After it
passes in front of the Sun, it will appear in the morning sky by mid February.

Thursday:
January is the coldest month of the year so it is time to turn up the furnace.
Fornax the furnace is one fist above due south at 7 p.m.

Friday: Saturn
is about a pinky width to the right of the moon at 7 a.m.

The
positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically
accurate for the entire week. For up to date information about the night sky,
go to http://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/planner.cfm.

Friday, January 2, 2015

Saturday: Late
tonight and early morning’s weather forecast: showers. Meteor showers, that is.
The Quadrantid meteor shower peaks late tonight and early tomorrow morning
between midnight and dawn. Meteor showers are named after the constellation
from which the meteors appear to originate. That makes this shower mysterious because
there isn’t any constellation with this name now. The shower was named after
Quadrans Muralis, an obsolete constellation found in some early 19th
century star atlases. These meteors appear to come from a point in the modern
constellation Draco the dragon. This point is about three fists held upright
and at arm’s length above the northeast horizon at 1 a.m. This year, the waxing
gibbous moonlight will obscure the dimmer meteors. Meteors are tiny rocks that
hit the Earth and burn up in the atmosphere. Most meteors are associated with
the path of a comet. This shower consists of the debris from an asteroid
discovered in 2003. Keeping with the comet-origin paradigm, astronomers think
the asteroid is actually an “extinct” comet, a comet that lost all of its ice
as it passed by the Sun during its many orbits. For more information on how to
observe a meteor shower, go to http://goo.gl/K8QRTY.

If the Sun
looks big today, your eyes are not playing tricks on you. The Earth is at
perihelion just before midnight tonight. If you dig out your Greek language
textbook, you’ll see that peri- means “in close proximity” and helios means
“Sun”. So, perihelion is when an object is closest to the Sun in its orbit,
about 1.5 million miles closer than its average distance of 93 million miles.
Since it is winter in the Northern Hemisphere now, the seasonal temperature
changes must not be caused by the Earth getting farther from and closer to the
Sun. Otherwise, we’d have summer when the Earth is closest to the Sun. The
seasons are caused by the angle of the sunlight hitting the Earth. In the
winter, sunlight hits the Earth at a very low angle, an angle far from
perpendicular or straight up and down. This means that a given “bundle” of
sunlight is spread out over a large area and does not warm the surface as much
as the same bundle in the summer.

Sunday: According
to a crazy internet rumor, the planets will align at 9:47 a.m. PST and decrease
gravity on Earth enough to make you feel weightless. DO NOT use this as an
excuse to overeat the night before. The planets will not be lined up this
morning. And even if they were, they are too far away to have any measurable
upward pull on you. You should be more worried about the gravitational pull of
those three body builders who work in the office right above yours than about
the gravitational pull of any planet other than Earth. To find out more about
this planetary alignment hoax, go to http://goo.gl/JZiexL.

Monday: Mercury
and Venus are about a half a fist above the southwest horizon at 5 p.m. You
will be able to spot Venus right away. Mercury is dimmer and may require
binoculars to be seen. As the week progresses, these two planets will be moving
higher in the sky and closer together.

Tuesday: Comet
Lovejoy C/2014 Q2, the fifth comet discovered by the Australian amateur
astronomer Terry Lovejoy, is making its closest approach to Earth tonight. Throughout
the rest of the month, it will be moving higher in the sky and getting
brighter. Tonight, it will be a challenge to find, even with binoculars. First
find Rigel, the brightest star in the constellation Orion, three and a half
fists above due south at 10 p.m. Comet Lovejoy is one fist, or about two
binocular fields of view to the right of Rigel. For more information, including
a finder chart, go to http://goo.gl/psV4F1.

Wednesday:
The moon and Jupiter travel through the sky together tonight. They rise in the
east-northeast sky just before 8 p.m. with Jupiter being about a fist to the
upper left of the moon. As the night goes on, the moon moves eastward with
respect to Jupiter meaning by the morning, Jupiter will be about a fist to the
upper right of the moon.

Thursday: Saturn
is two fists above the southeast horizon at 7 a.m.

Friday:
Have you ever looked down on the ground and spotted a penny? In Yakima? While
you were standing in Ellensburg? If you have, then you may be able to see the
star Hamal as more than just a point of light. It has an angular diameter that
can be directly measured from Earth. Hamal, the brightest star in the
constellation Aries the ram, has the same angular diameter as a penny 37 miles
away. (For comparison, the moon is about half the diameter of a penny held at
arm’s length.) Hamal is three and a half fists above due west at 11 p.m.

The
positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically
accurate for the entire week. For up to date information about the night sky,
go to http://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/planner.cfm.